


She Will Never Say Goodbye

by your_fetish



Category: Justified
Genre: Gen, M/M, squint for relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-14
Updated: 2013-12-14
Packaged: 2018-01-04 14:10:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1081940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/your_fetish/pseuds/your_fetish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If it were not for Harlan, where would you be? She made you, dipped her fingers into the clay and molded you. You owe your life to Harlan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	She Will Never Say Goodbye

Harlan is gun smoke in the air and blood on the tongue.

Harlan settles deep in your bones, a bitter taste in the back of your mouth.  She clogs your veins and rattles in your lungs. Harlan is old country, wild country. Harlan has no rules and less love.

Harlan is home. Harlan is your first pickup, axle bent, paint chipped, exhaust pipe rattling.  Harlan is the old baseball field in the grown-over lot just past Route 38.  Harlan is bloody knees and tattered knuckles worn like a badge of pride.  Harlan is stolen alcohol and forbidden kisses.

Harlan is her mines, the untold depths that would swallow a man with nary a thought.  Harlan buries her secrets deep and her people deeper.

Harlan is a twisted mockery of a fairytale.  There is no enchantment in Harlan, no magic, no princes or kings or witches.  Just Harlan and her own.

She watches the plotting and the thieving with the same critical eye as she watches the children and the abandoned.  Harlan bears silent witness to the wretched and the damned and the forgotten. 

You curse her and praise her with every breath. If it were not for Harlan, where would you be? She made you, dipped her fingers into the clay and molded you. You owe your life to Harlan.

You thought you left Harlan behind, a remnant of a different life. And yet she lingered in the echoes of every step you took, waiting to reclaim you for her own.

For Harlan will never say goodbye to one of her children.  She counts heads every night, not resting until she is satisfied with the answer. 

You railed futilely against her in the beginning.  You got in your truck and rode for hours, until your eyes slid closed unbidden and your vehicle jerked sideways.  And yet you pressed on, letting worn tires take you away from Harlan.

But it did not last. It could never last.  Not when she seared her name on your heart at birth.  Not when she placed herself inside your very soul with the first breath you took.   Life was cold and meaningless in Harlan’s absence. 

The day your boots returned to Harlan, she embraced you with a kiss on the cheek and a dagger in the back. The world had tilted, shifted, left you behind.  Harlan had soldiered on in your absence.  You found yourself scrambling to reorient yourself, to make sense of the world you left behind. 

Harlan’s children remember you.  Their tired, harsh eyes watch you warily.  You have betrayed Harlan and that is a grievance not taken lightly.  It will take exculpation from Harlan herself to redeem you.  And Harlan doles out absolution in small measures.  After all, Harlan forgives little and forgets none. Her memory is long and shrewd.

Your penance comes at the hands of Harlan’s favorite, her prodigy, her disciple.  Over the long stretch of the table you see your providence and what must be done.  You understand what she has planned for you and you accept that fate.  Harlan watches dispassionately as you pay her toll.  This is your baptism. 

There is regret though, mingled in with the smell of chicken and rust and gunpowder.  You despise what Harlan has done to you, what she has forced you to become.  You hate her for taking away the one bright spot you had left of your childhood. 

But that hatred is dull.  For Harlan would never let her child die on that floor.  Harlan has plans for her beloved.  So you let that hate settle into your heart next to the Harlan dust and you seethe quietly. You resent Harlan for your actions while thanking her for her mercy.   

You have proved yourself to Harlan and she has welcomed you back like the lost sheep you are.  But her ever attentive eyes have focused on you, forbidding you from ever wandering again. 

So your pardon is proved again and again and again on her roads, in her houses, with her people. 

Her child follows you, eloquent words disguising his trust, his faith.  For he has turned.  Harlan is no longer his identity.  He has embraced you instead.  Your homecoming has wretched him from his path and he has given himself up to you. 

You rebel, you don’t want him.  He is a remnant of your past, a living reminder of your flaws and should-have-been, could-have-been, would-have-been.  You are not his salvation, you are not the pillow he lies his head down on every night. 

But you don’t have the heart to turn him away.  You did that once, leaving him behind in the shattered vestiges of potential unrealized.  That thought sours in your mouth.  What has Harlan done to you? 

 

Everywhere you walk Harlan follows.  Harlan is you, was you, ever shall be you.

 


End file.
